1. Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the invention relate to the field of data storage, and in particular, systems and methods for creating an operating system and file system independent incremental data backup.
2. Background of the Invention
Data is typically stored on computing systems and/or attached storage devices. The data may include operating system data, file system data, and application data. Data may be lost due to system failure or human error. Frequently, a backup copy of data is made to enable a data restore from the backup copy if the primary copy data is lost, corrupted or becomes inconsistent.
In a typical data backup architecture, a backup client obtains data that is to be backed up, and sends the data to a backup server. The backup server then stores the data on a storage device, such as a hard disk drive or tape. The backup client can restore data upon the occurrence of data loss or system failure with a backup copy of the data. When retrieving the backup copy of the data, the backup server obtains the data from the storage device and sends the data to the backup client. The data is returned to a prior satisfactory state upon completion of a successful data restore. The backup client may perform a full data backup which copies entire contents of a system to be backed up. A backup client may subsequently perform an incremental data backup which copies all data updated since a previous backup.
Traditional incremental backup clients detect changes to the file system by either comparing file metadata and file content checksums, or by utilizing operating system facilities that provide logs of file system modifications. Therefore, backup clients are developed for a specific operating system or file system. These backup clients also need to be installed and run from within the user's operating system, requiring user interaction. As backup solutions evolve, aging operating systems may no longer be supported. Further, current backup systems copy entire virtual machines images, commonly stored as single large files, even if only small portions of the data was modified.